Late Show isn't enough for David Letterman.

Casual viewers might assume David Letterman's presence on their TV screens begins when Late Show starts at 11:35 p.m. on weeknights and ends an hour later, after a dose of Top Ten Lists and celebrity interviews.

But through his production outfit, Worldwide Pants Inc., the talk show host has been able to make his mark--and make money--across the broadcast landscape. Letterman has stakes in another six and a half hours of network programming: The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn, the frathouse-friendly chat show that runs on CBS immediately after Letterman's; Ed, a quirky one-hour comedy/drama now entering its third season on NBC; and CBS' sitcom hit Everybody Loves Raymond, which will generate more than $500 million in syndication revenue for him and his partners.

By all accounts Letterman never set out to become a TV mogul. He doesn't need the money: The five-year renewal he just signed with CBS for Late Show, after a fleeting but well-timed flirtation with ABC, is worth some $350 million; more than $155 million of that will go straight to Letterman. That he also has created a side business making other programs is a testament to celebrity clout. Using his leverage as a talk show icon, Letterman helps his pals and employees generate program ideas, gets third parties to pay for their production and sometimes gets them on the air.

"There's not a person in the business who doesn't want to be in business with David Letterman," says Rob Burnett, who produces Ed and runs Worldwide Pants for Dave. "That's going to last as long as he's on the air, and a lot of this was us thinking ahead to take advantage of that."

Letterman didn't start thinking about producing until later in his career, after he had established himself as a star. For nearly 12 years he was merely a well-compensated employee of NBC as host of the after-midnight talk show NBC owned, Late Night with David Letterman. He longed to move up an hour earlier and succeed his idol, Johnny Carson, as host of The Tonight Show at 11:30. But when NBC gave the slot to Jay Leno in 1992, a spurned Letterman defected to CBS.

Included in his CBS contract were three points that seemed at first like an afterthought: Letterman, rather than the network, would own Late Show airing in the 11:30 p.m. slot; he also would have the opportunity to control and own a show in the time period that followed it; and he would have a development deal funded by CBS. After two decades of failed attempts to develop a successful competitor to NBC's Tonight, CBS eagerly agreed to all three requests.

Letterman's new show premiered in August 1993 and started out beating Jay Leno handily in the ratings race, but by 1995 his lead had eroded. Now Jay consistently beats Dave, winning the past six years. If that rankles Letterman, he can take solace in knowing that moving to CBS gave him more cash and clout than his rival has ever had. (Unlike Letterman, Leno doesn't own a stake in his show.)

CBS pays Letterman a $31 million salary on top of the license fees it pays to Worldwide Pants for both Late Show and Kilborn's slot. CBS even lets Letterman's people run the shows as they wish, from staffing decisions to celebrity bookings. (Nor does Letterman have to kowtow to CBS and consent to media interviews. He declined to talk for this story, and his publicist says he hasn't spoken to a reporter in almost four years.)

Letterman's handlers say he controls a majority of his company but won't name other partners. Worldwide Pants is responsible for its own payroll and overhead, and controls the rights to the shows after they air. Letterman even picks which reruns CBS uses when he is on vacation. So far there has been little aftermarket for the shows, but Worldwide Pants is in talks to sell repeats to Comedy Central for roughly $150,000 a week.

The original CBS deal also gave Letterman a budget of a few hundred thousand dollars to hire a development executive and pay support staff; in return CBS gets the first peek at any shows he creates. Such development deals often are a giveaway to buff a celebrity's ego. Sometimes networks will even offer up programs they already are developing to stars they want to coddle, giving them a chance to call themselves producers.

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